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Monday, December 12, 2011

County seeds and tournament update

Some notes and thoughts about county basketball as we head into the last week before the holiday break:

LeFlore County basketball coaches and administrators met last Wednesday to seed the county teams for the upcoming LeFlore County Tournament, which begins on Jan. 16.

To run a tournament, teams have to be seeded and this happens every year. The only difference was this year the seeding was a little early.

With the larger schools just getting started, some schools had not played enough games to be able to judge how good they are. Heavener’s boys and girls had played once prior to the seeding, Spiro had only played twice, as had Poteau’s girls, and others.

There is no perfect time to seed the teams, but even a little later could have changed the seeding process. Howe’s girls were seeded first, as they should have been at the time.

But one day after the seeding was done, the Lady Lions lost to Rattan at the Choctaw Invitational Tournament. Talihina defeated Rattan the following night and went on to win the tournament.

Sure, the tournament was played at Talihina and the Lady Tigers had the home court advantage, but this certainly would have had some influence on the seeding process if done later.

As it is, Howe’s girls are seeded first, Spiro (which also lost last week) is second while Talihina is third. Everybody still did a good job with the seeding and until and if Howe and Talihina play, there is no way to determine which team is better. Or if a talented Spiro team is the best in the county, and you also have to throw undefeated Bokoshe into the mix.

Here is how the boys bracket and girls bracket for the 2012 LCT will look like, obviously we do not have the times or locations yet.

And speaking of tournaments, the county was well represented over the weekend. As mentioned earlier, Talihina’s girls won the Choctaw Invitational Tournament while Howe’s boys edged Wister in the third-place game.

Arkoma’s girls captured their own tournament with wins over County Line and Mansfield.

At EOSC, county teams won their bracket. Bokoshe’s girls overcame a lot to win their bracket while Cameron edged LeFlore in the boys division.

Bokoshe played without one of its best players in Jamie Carberry, lost a big lead and went over six minutes without scoring to win. Brianna Brassfield hit another winning basket on an assist from tournament MVP Miranda McFarland in the overtime win over Panola.

In the boys finals, it was a “no…no…good shot!” moment which was the clincher for Cameron. With the score tied in overtime and some 17 seconds left, the Yellow Jackets called a timeout to set up a final shot. Instead of working the clock, Ryan Carter took the inbounds pass and launched a shot from deep in the corner.

It went in to give Cameron a three-point lead and Kenny Whitehead iced the win seconds later with a pair of free throws.

Carter was the MVP of the tournament. But this isn’t the same old LeFlore team which Cameron defeated.

Caleb Smith is one of the best scorers in the county for the Savages and his not making the all-tournament team is still a mystery, unless it was reserved for seniors. Along with Dakota Watson, LeFlore has a couple of standout players and solid players in other positions.

The Savages could cause a lot of problems in the LCT for one of the higher seeds.